The Reporting Method of GRI

The tool which is most commonly used to prepare reports on corporate responsibility are the Global Reporting Initiative Guidelines. These guidelines can be used to write the report by any company or organisation. Using them is free. As a supplement to these guidelines, there are several manuals specially prepared and published for individual types of business (e.g. the mining industry or banks).

The manual is very detailed and the data sets that the companies provide using the guidelines can be easily compared with each other. The guidelines are used by several thousand companies all over the world. The first version was published in 2002 and the currently (2016) valid version can be found under the G4 label. The GRI database contains almost 24,000 reports by more than 9,000 companies. The guidelines consist of three parts:

The principles of report preparation (content and report quality)

Publishing general information

Publishing specific information

The Principles for Defining Report Content

If a company wants its report to include relevant content, it should follow the following principles:

Stakeholder Inclusiveness

The company should identify its interested parties (stakeholders) and the report should include information about how the company has reacted to their requirements and needs. These groups include customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers, communities as well as the environment.

Sustainability Context

The information in the report should be presented in the context of sustainable development.

Materiality

The report should also include areas in which the company has a significant economic, environmental and social impact and where its decisions influence the decision-making of its stakeholders.

Completeness

The report should include all relevant information that would paint the reader a comprehensive picture of the performance of the company.

The principles for Defining Report Quality

The report should contain data that has been published with the following principles:

Balance

The report should include both positive and negative impacts of the organisation.

Comparability

The data in the report should be reported consistently so that it can be compared with other time periods.

Accuracy

The data in the report should be accurate.

Timeliness

The report should be prepared in regular intervals (1 – 2 years).

Clarity

The data should be reported in a way that is understandable to the intended stakeholders.